hehehe or the autofab.
stock arms = stock ride & stock travel
Let me explain..
The stock ride isn't bad at all, and with only 3" of lift and new springs and shocks it is improved further. Dont take me the wrong way, stage I is a good place to be.
There are two things I do not like about the new Duff TTB kits (Other bolt on kits are similar too)
First the fact that the coil bucket assembly bolts to the frame at the stock ride height, meaning a 3" coil gives you 3" of lift, whereas if I was to bolt on a new coil bucket I would re-locate it at least 2" upward. In this case a 5" lift coil would now get you 3" of lift AND increased bump travel. So why bother with the Duff buckets when you can improve the lift in this area using stock or other aftermarket buckets?? Now the Duff VR coils (which are awesome because of the variable rate) are not tall enough, and they do not offer a TTB coil that will work with more then 3" of lift currently, I dont believe. The dual shock setup is great, if you plan to wheel the truck off road into situations where the shocks will heat up (desert racing) otherwise it is overkill, a single shock is easily capable of handling DD and trail duty, especially for low range crawling where the shock is cycled slowly.
Second the Duff re-designed radius arms are a single tube design. This has been attempted in the industry over and over again and they have not been able to hold up to the abuse thrown at them, again mainly by the high speed desert or hard core rock crawler guys. Now with that said it is my understanding that the new Duff heim single tube arms are VERY stout this time around and I have yet to hear of one bending, breaking or twisting, but this is more likely due to the availability of better suited heim jointed arms for this type of extreme use application.
Once you have a 3" lift you will want more, to upgrade to a stage II with a SOA in the rear on an Explorer. The problem with going this route with Duff is they do not currently offer anything more than 3", and the parts that come with your stage I kit will all have to be replaced when you decide to go stage II, with the exception of the pitman arm and coil buckets.
Duff has talked about developing a taller kit, not sure if it is available yet. It is also not clear if it retains the same drop brackets for the axle pivots or not.
I started with their earlier TTB kit, I wheeled the heck out of it! It handled decent, I loved the VR coils because the more the coil compresses the stiffer it gets (great for bumps) however the nature of the TTB is ALOT of droop travel and not much bump travel so it doesnt help that much. Their 70/30 shocks were too stiff IMO as well, adding 4 of them is really stiff.
When you want to add radius arms down the road you are stuck using Duff, because other brands will not work with only 3" of lift, your camber will not be able to be corrected. this will require taller axle pivot drop brackets then what you get with Duff, again more parts must be replaced, or like in my case, cut and turned beams must be built to correct camber and driveline angles
As long as we are talking about using the lift mostly for light trail duty and daily driving, the Duff heim joints might be a little much. Heims ride much rougher than bushings, they transfer all the load into the frame and heim joints also wear out and must be replaced every so often.
Now what I learned by going the long way (story of my BII's life) is that if I was to do it over again I would skip all this and go straight to a simple and very cost effective (for what you get) custom beam setup like the ones offered from Camburg, Autofab, Giant, Baja Shop, and others..
when looking to improve the ride qualities, traction, handling, and atriculation of a TTB setup, it is all about geometry, by keeping stock components you are not changing any of it.
Just something to think about before you spend the $$
